Udacity partners with Google to expand nanodegree program to India / The online education company is expanding to India, its first country outside of the U.S.

Leena Rao for Fortune writes:Online education company Udacity will start offering classes tailored to Indian students, marking the startup’s first effort to target a country outside the U.S.

The move is a major step for the company as tries turn its popular courses into a real business, something it has strived to do since its founding in 2012.

Udacity, the brainchild of former Google roboticist and Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun, initially gained attention by putting free college courses online to make learning more accessible. However, that plan ran into trouble after students performed poorly and colleges ended their partnerships.